First Contact

Nahida’s inhuman sprint takes her along the southern road through the wide open plains and golden fields of grain.

Nahida’s heel contacts the ground.

In a split second, she observes a thirteen farmers and two armored soldiers clustered together approximately thirty meters ahead of her. The farmers brandish scythes and pitchforks. The soldiers wield spears with elaborate heads. They appear to be actively hostile towards an entity made of viscous black ink and hair. The entity has a somewhat plant-like shape.

There are a few farmers at the foot of the entity. They have markings along their bodies like blackened veins that radiate from spots caked with ink and hair.

These people are in distress.

Nahida consults her directives.

Mitigate harm where possible. Provide aide where possible. These were quite clear, but would they conflict with her core directive of ensuring the sustained health of Isaac? She inspected her remaining power. She had consumed an hour of it traveling this distance. If her estimations were correct, she would arrive at the Godfall with three hours of active time remaining.

She was able to observe the energy signature of Alfred’s Bixite staff, so she would be able to identify the Bixite by comparing it to that. Assuming she could identify the Pure Bixite and determine a means of utilizing it within the time remaining, it would be possible to uphold all of her directives and objectives while providing aide to this group.

She added “help the farmers” to her list of objectives.

Nahida’s toes contact the ground.

She scans the surroundings. She would need more information to provide the necessary aide. One of the fallen farmers lost grip on a scythe. At her pace, if she were to take up the scythe, would that be sufficient to damage the entity? More information is needed.

Her eyes dart about. She observes a black line of ink and hair nearby the entity. On more careful observation, the entity is asymmetrical. On the opposite side, the entity has a long tendril. She determines that the scythe is more than likely sufficient.

She observes the fallen farmers. The ink-and-hair masses are more than likely the cause of their condition. Whatever these masses are, they seem to be infectious and/or parasitic. She had no means she was aware of to aide them. The best she could do was mitigate any further harm.

Her heel lifts from the ground.

Nahida shifts her weight and alters her trajectory slightly to pass by the unmanned scythe. She adjusts the position of her arms and hands, swiftly gripping the scythe and holding it level. She sweeps the scythe’s cutting edge over the fallen farmers and straight into the entity at a horse’s pace. The force rips the entity from the ground and cleanly in half. An ungodly screech echoes out as the two halves disintegrate.

She drops the scythe and keeps running.

This set of actions burns approximately fifteen minutes of power. 

Meanwhile, Isaac and Ellen were interrogating one another.

Ellen adorns a white apron with a unicorn coat of arms emblazoned in blue upon her chest. She hefts a precarious stack of books over to the bed. “Are you the one who created Nahida?”

Isaac leans to the side and narrowly avoids the stack falling onto the bed. “No, she’s a commercial model. She was assigned to me when I was a little kid.”

Ellen hops onto the bed next to him and pulls one of the books from the stack. “I can’t imagine the marvels of your world if something like her is so readily available.”

Isaac scoots away a bit. “I wouldn’t say readily… the only reason I have her is because of my condition.”

Ellen flips through the book and sets it open next to him. “What is your condition, exactly?”

Isaac shakes his head. “I’m not sure… I have a weak body. My heart, my lungs, my muscles… they give out easily.”

“Hm… weakness…” she turns a few pages. “It’s hard to narrow it down from that…” she runs a finger along one page. “It’s certainly not abyssal sickness, you just got here…”

Isaac looks at the book. He sees a drawing of what looks like black and blue flower with several people hunches and kneeling around it. “What is the abyss?”

Ellen settles a hand on her cheek. “It’s… difficult to describe. Hm… Every few generations, it pops up. It spreads along the ley lines like a mold or a fungus. Where it surfaces, things wither and die, and they get covered in inky goo and strangling black hairs. When living things are near it, the abyss weakens their bodies. When it touches things, it spreads. Sometimes… those infected with it lose their wills and attack others.”

Isaac stares at the drawing wide-eyed. “That’s… awful.” His head raises to meet Ellen’s attention. “What am I supposed to do about any of it?”

Ellen reaches for another book. “Every time the abyss has sprung up, it all comes from a single point. That point is never the same, but there is always an origin.” She flips through the book to a page with a drawing of a black tree filled with blue and red flowers. “If you destroy the source, all of the spread goes away.“

Isaac looks the drawing over. “I’m willing to help, but… why me? Why call for heroes from other worlds?”

Ellen flips back in the book to previous pages. “The records say that the heroes from other worlds possessed a certain force that repels and purifies the abyss. There’s nothing that says why, but… I suspect it’s because the abyss is also from another world.”

Isaac brings his hands up to ponder them. “So… am I… immune to the abyss?”

Ellen shakes her head. “Resistant, yes, but not immune. The only things that would be immune to it would be things without wills of their own, like rocks or swords.”

Isaac sets his hands down again. “I think I understand.”

Ellen goes back to the other book. “Now then… let me see if we can figure out the more specific symptoms. Hm… I’ll need to get my equipment.”

Isaac becomes nervous. 

The sun was high when Nahida left the castle. It was now setting to her right over the distant waters. She could see a great crater ahead.

Along the way, she had made a handful of stops to aide those she passed by. From them, she learned that Godfall was indeed the crater before her, but all of the stopping, starting, and tasks had cost her battery time. She had only an hour remaining from the excess use. She would need to make the most of that time to find and utilize the Bixite somehow.

She reaches the crater and leaps over the edge. She skids her way down the crater slope, scanning everything she can in the area for the Bixite energy signature. There are a number of matches around the area, but just to the right of the crater’s heart, she detects a particularly potent signature. She determines that is likely the target in question.

Her slide comes to a stop just on the opposite side of the heart. She turns around and to her right and sees an iridescent crystal cluster about the size of her head emerging from the ground.

She sees several bodies around with those same ink-and-hair masses mottling their skin. She steps past them towards the cluster. She examines the cluster. There is an ever-shifting sheen to them. Her reflection shifts along with the sheen.

She retrieves the catalyst and hangs it over the cluster like a censure over the from its braided wire cord. The crystals in the cluster are far too large to fit properly inside it. She would have to improvise.

She took hold of one crystal, twisted her wrist, and broke it off. It sent out a surge of energy. She could detect a fluctuation in her power reserve. It caused her energy to deplete by half. 

A screeching sound echoes behind her. She turns to see the bodies jerking to life. The ink-and-hair masses on them bubble as if boiling. Several of the masses burst and bloom into black flowers with red and blue accents. The bodies lurch up to standing positions, eyes, mouths, and noses glowing with ethereal red and blue vapors. The bodies focus on her.

There is nothing in her database that comes close to explaining this situation. There was no medical precedent for this that she was aware of. She could not comprehend it. She freezes.

The bodies lurch toward Nahida. She keeps attempting to process the situation at hand. It keeps returning errors. The situation is illogical, impossible.

Her power reserves keep ticking down, second by second. Twenty-four minutes and counting remain as she tries and fails to process the approaching corpses over and over again.

One takes hold of her. Her remaining minutes start to tick down like seconds. She feels a surge go through her arm from the Crystal, into her chest, through her body, and out where the reanimated body grips her.

She… felt it…